Indian general election, 1951–52

Indian general election, 1951
India
25 October 1951 to 21 February 1952
All 489 seats in the Lok Sabha
245 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader Jawaharlal Nehru Shripad Amrit Dange
Party INC CPI
Leader's seat Phulpur Bombay City North
Seats won 364 16
Popular vote 47,665,875 3,484,401
Percentage 44.99% 3.29%
Prime Minister before election

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

 Subsequent Prime Minister

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

The Indian general election of 1951–52 elected the first Lok Sabha since India became independent in August 1947.[1][2][3] Until this point, the Indian Constituent Assembly had served as an interim legislature. See the 'Durations' section below to find the time-range associated with these elections.

The Indian National Congress (INC) won a landslide victory, winning 364 of the 489 seats and 45% of the total votes polled. This was over four times as many votes as the second-largest party. Jawaharlal Nehru became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the country. In the first Lok Sabha polls held in 1951, India had around 173 million voters, out of an overall population of about 360 million.[4] Voter turnout was 45.7%.[5]

Parties

Before Independent India went to the polls, two former cabinet colleagues of Nehru established separate political parties to challenge the INC's supremacy. While Shyama Prasad Mookerjee went on to found the Jana Sangh in October 1951, Dalit leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar revived the Scheduled Castes Federation (which was later named the Republican Party). Other parties which started coming to the forefront included the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Parishad, whose prime mover was Acharya Kripalani; the Socialist Party, which had Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan's leadership to boast of; and the Communist Party of India. However, these smaller parties were unable to make an electoral stand against the Indian National Congress.

Constituencies

The first general elections, which were conducted for 489 seats in 401 constituencies, represented 26 Indian states. At that time, there were 314 constituencies with one seat, 86 with two seats and one with three seats.[6] The multi-seat constituencies were abolished in the 1960s. There were also 2 nominated Anglo-Indian members.

Results

Party Abbr. Votes % Seats
Akhil Bharatiya Hindu MahasabhaABHM 0.954
Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya ParishadRRP 1.973
Bharatiya Jana SanghBJS3,246,2883.063
Bolshevik Party of IndiaBPI 0.020
Communist Party of IndiaCPI3,484,4013.2916
Forward Bloc (Marxist)FB(M) 0.911
Forward Bloc (Ruiker)FB(R) 0.130
Indian National CongressINC47,665,87544.99364
Krishikar Lok PartyKLP 1.411
Kisan Mazdoor Praja PartyKMPP6,156,5585.799
Revolutionary Communist Party of IndiaRCPI 0.060
Revolutionary Socialist PartyRSP 0.443
Scheduled Caste FederationSCF 2.382
Socialist PartySP11,266,77910.5912
All India Republican PartyREP 0.040
All India Republican PartyRPP 0.050
All India United Kisan SabhaUKS 0.060
All Manipur National UnionAMNU 0.020
All People's PartyAPP 0.030
Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata PartyCNSPJP 0.221
Cochin PartyCP 0.010
Commonweal PartyCWP 0.313
Ganatantra ParishadGP 0.916
Gandhi Sebak SevaGSS 0.010
Hill Peoples PartyHPP 0.020
Historical ResearchHR 0.000
Hyderabad State Praja PartyHSPP 0.010
Jharkhand PartyJKP 0.713
Justice PartyJP 0.060
Kamgar Kisan PakshaKKP 0.130
Kerala Socialist PartyKSP 0.10
Khasi-Jaintia DurbarKJD 0.030
Kisan Janata Sanyukta PartyKJSP 0.010
Kisan Mazdoor MandalKMM 0.010
Kuki National AssociationKNA 0.010
Lok Sevak SanghLSS 0.292
Madras State Muslim League PartyMSMLP 0.081
National Party of IndiaNPI 0.000
Peasants and Workers Party of IndiaPWPI 0.942
Peoples Democratic FrontPDF 1.297
Praja PartyPP 0.020
Punjab Depressed Class LeaguePDCL 0.010
Pursharathi PanchayatPURP 0.010
Revolutionary Socialist Party (Uttar Pradesh)RSP(UP) 0.020
Shiromani Akali DalSAD 0.994
S.K. PakshaSKP 0.130
Saurashtra Khedut SanghSKS 0.030
Tamil Nadu Toilers PartyTNTP 0.844
Tamil Nadu Congress PartyTNCP 0.030
Tribal SanghaTS 0.110
Travancore Tamil Nadu Congress PartyTTNC 0.111
Uttar Pradesh Praja PartyUPP 0.20
Zamindar PartyZP 0.270
Independents16,817,91015.937
Nominated Anglo-Indians––2
Total105,944,495100489

Notable losses

Scheduled Caste leader B. R. Ambedkar was defeated in the Bombay (North Central) (reserved seat) constituency as Scheduled Castes Federation candidate by his little-known former assistant and Congress Candidate Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, who polled 1,38,137 votes compared to Ambedkar's 1,23,576 votes.[7]:156 Dr Ambedkar then entered the parliament as a Rajya Sabha member. He contested by-poll from Bhandara in 1954 to try to enter Lok Sabha but again lost to Mr Borkar of Congress.

Acharya Kripalani lost from Faizabad in UP as KMPP candidate, but his wife Sucheta Kripalani defeated the Congress candidate Manmohini Sahgal in Delhi.[8]

Government formation

The Speaker of the first Lok Sabha was Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar. The first Lok Sabha also witnessed 677 sittings (3,784 hours), the highest recorded count of the number of sittings. The Lok Sabha lasted its full term from 17 April 1952 until 4 April 1957.

Duration

While Indian Government's official websites and official documents assign the year 1951 to these polls, it is a misrepresentation because all territories except Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir voted in February–March 1952; no polls were held for Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir until 1967, and only Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 for the first Lok Sabha because weather tends to be inclement in February and March, heavy snow impending free movement.[9] The rest of the India voted only in February–March 1952 for the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. Polling was held between 25 October 1951 and 27 March 1952. The very first votes of the election were cast in the tehsil (district) of Chini in Himachal Pradesh.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Lok Sabha Results 1951-52". Election Commission of India.
  2. ↑ "Statistical Report on Lok Sabha Elections 1951-52" (PDF). Election Commission of India.
  3. ↑ "Lok Sabha Elections Stats Summary 1951-52" (PDF). Election Commission of India.
  4. ↑ India has nearly 83 crore voters: Brahma
  5. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p. 572 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
  6. ↑ "General Election of India 1951, List of Successful Candidate" (PDF). Election Commission of India. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
  7. 1 2 Ramachandra Guha (2008). India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. ISBN 978-0-06-095858-9.
  8. ↑ David Gilmartin (2014). "Chapter 5: The paradox of patronage and the people's sovereignty". In Anastasia Pivliavsky. Patronage as Politics in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-1-107-05608-4.
  9. ↑ India's first voter in Himachal Pradesh, by Gautam Dhmeer, in the Deccan Herald; published 30 October 2012; retrieved 7 April 2014

Further reading

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